Technocracy’s most valuable assets, precisely because it’d never signed the Technocracy charter.
It turned out the humans Dad brought to Celestia weren’t interested in clearing a few grubby acres and trying to grow butternut squash. Instead, they wanted to grow huge acres of cash: for example, by establishing big secretive banks outside the Technocracy regulatory system. Places where wealthy Tech-citizens could store money without worrying about taxes or subpoenas. Celestia also became a meeting ground for folks making shady deals…especially under-the-table arrangements with alien species. One group of newly arrived entrepreneurs took up catering to tourists with tastes that would be illegal elsewhere; others built factories that spewed pollution or exploited workers in ways the Technocracy would never allow.
In other words, Counselor said, Celestia had become a place where big rich important people could do sneaky slimy things—all the things they couldn’t get away with inside the boring old Technocracy. (Of course, those big rich important people still lived in the Technocracy, where life was safe and civilized. What’s the point of being rich if you can’t milk the system, then avoid its inconveniences?)
So Celestia was a nice little planet, but also your basic swill hole. People and things got dumped here. The Mandasars were a prime example: brought in as a ruse for colonization, then kept here because the place didn’t have fuddy-duddy laws about raising kids properly. Folks in this star system wouldn’t demand you build “quality orphanages” or find teachers who knew what they were talking about.
The kids had grown up without a lot of attention…but that wasn’t so bad, Counselor said, when they were raised in big schools that crammed a lot of children into one place. Mandasars don’t mind being crammed. In fact, I knew it was good for them to be chucked in tight together, warriors and workers and gentles.
If you want the honest truth, they thrive on each other’s smell.
This is something I learned in Queen Verity’s palace: a crucial fact of Mandasar biology. They need to be surrounded by people of other castes. Every waking second, for instance, a warrior gives off a vinegary perfume (Musk A) that stimulates workers and gentles to be a bit…well, aggressive isn’t the right word. Sharp. Keen. Alert and ambitious.
It’s a pheromone that works directly on receptors in the Mandasar brain. It’s not psychological, it’s purely physical; for Mandasars, inhaling that aroma is like snorting a psychoactive drug. Only it’s more like absorbing a vitamin their brains need to work properly—without regular exposure to warrior musk, workers and gentles start to go funny in the head.
It’s the same for other castes. Workers give off a scent that keeps warriors and gentles more stable, more patient; and the fragrance of a gentle makes warriors and workers more thoughtful in both senses of the word—they reflect more on what they’re doing, and are more considerate about how their actions affect other people.
Separate the castes from each other, and their brain chemicals skitter out of balance. If you keep warriors stuck in barracks with other warriors day after day, the buildup of warrior musk keeps them hair-trigger ready for a fight…but they have no patience, and they don’t think much about what they’re asked to do. That’s great if you want bloodthirsty killing machines who don’t question their orders. In the long run, though, it doesn’t make for a smart dependable army. Or for productive law-abiding citizens.
The same with other castes. Make a segregated camp that only contains workers, and you get a drove of plodding drudges. Verity told me you could make them work long hours for zero pay, but they had no initiative and never used their wits to deal with unexpected problems.
Ditto for gentles. If they only hung around with other gentles, they ended up all brains and no
It turned out the humans Dad brought to Celestia weren’t interested in clearing a few grubby acres and trying to grow butternut squash. Instead, they wanted to grow huge acres of cash: for example, by establishing big secretive banks outside the Technocracy regulatory system. Places where wealthy Tech-citizens could store money without worrying about taxes or subpoenas. Celestia also became a meeting ground for folks making shady deals…especially under-the-table arrangements with alien species. One group of newly arrived entrepreneurs took up catering to tourists with tastes that would be illegal elsewhere; others built factories that spewed pollution or exploited workers in ways the Technocracy would never allow.
In other words, Counselor said, Celestia had become a place where big rich important people could do sneaky slimy things—all the things they couldn’t get away with inside the boring old Technocracy. (Of course, those big rich important people still lived in the Technocracy, where life was safe and civilized. What’s the point of being rich if you can’t milk the system, then avoid its inconveniences?)
So Celestia was a nice little planet, but also your basic swill hole. People and things got dumped here. The Mandasars were a prime example: brought in as a ruse for colonization, then kept here because the place didn’t have fuddy-duddy laws about raising kids properly. Folks in this star system wouldn’t demand you build “quality orphanages” or find teachers who knew what they were talking about.
The kids had grown up without a lot of attention…but that wasn’t so bad, Counselor said, when they were raised in big schools that crammed a lot of children into one place. Mandasars don’t mind being crammed. In fact, I knew it was good for them to be chucked in tight together, warriors and workers and gentles.
If you want the honest truth, they thrive on each other’s smell.
This is something I learned in Queen Verity’s palace: a crucial fact of Mandasar biology. They need to be surrounded by people of other castes. Every waking second, for instance, a warrior gives off a vinegary perfume (Musk A) that stimulates workers and gentles to be a bit…well, aggressive isn’t the right word. Sharp. Keen. Alert and ambitious.
It’s a pheromone that works directly on receptors in the Mandasar brain. It’s not psychological, it’s purely physical; for Mandasars, inhaling that aroma is like snorting a psychoactive drug. Only it’s more like absorbing a vitamin their brains need to work properly—without regular exposure to warrior musk, workers and gentles start to go funny in the head.
It’s the same for other castes. Workers give off a scent that keeps warriors and gentles more stable, more patient; and the fragrance of a gentle makes warriors and workers more thoughtful in both senses of the word—they reflect more on what they’re doing, and are more considerate about how their actions affect other people.
Separate the castes from each other, and their brain chemicals skitter out of balance. If you keep warriors stuck in barracks with other warriors day after day, the buildup of warrior musk keeps them hair-trigger ready for a fight…but they have no patience, and they don’t think much about what they’re asked to do. That’s great if you want bloodthirsty killing machines who don’t question their orders. In the long run, though, it doesn’t make for a smart dependable army. Or for productive law-abiding citizens.
The same with other castes. Make a segregated camp that only contains workers, and you get a drove of plodding drudges. Verity told me you could make them work long hours for zero pay, but they had no initiative and never used their wits to deal with unexpected problems.
Ditto for gentles. If they only hung around with other gentles, they ended up all brains and no
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